The John Tracy Clinic (JTC) has a long history in the development and implementation of distance education courses for parents. It began with the founder of JTC, Louise Tracy, who personally corresponded with parents of young children with hearing loss around the globe to provide them hope, guidance, and encouragement. Mrs. Tracy's correspondence with parents was formalized into a course format in 1943 after Mrs. Tracy and her husband, Spencer Tracy, founded JTC in 1942 in honor of their son, John, who was diagnosed with a hearing loss at age 10 months. In 1946, JTC began offering professional development courses to professionals, which were formalized as a master's degree and credential program in 1954 in partnership with the University of Southern California School of Education. Fifty years later, in 1996, JTC began offering a series of six online courses for professional development leading to a certificate in early childhood deaf education through the JTC Academy, an in-house professional development academy at JTC. To address California's needs, and to address the urgent calls from teachers in other states who were confronted with children and families desiring listening and spoken language communication, JTC created its online master's program in deaf education in 2002. In the same year, JTC received federal funding to offer the Distance Learning master's degree program with JTC's university partner, the University of Southern California. The program was accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) in 2002. Between 2003 and 2005, the JTC Teacher Education Department made major revisions to the program so that the Distance Learning Program paralleled the onsite program in content and quality, and met the standards of California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC). During the same period, both programs were re-designed to meet the competencies established by Auditory-Verbal International for auditory-verbal therapists, and subsequently for the nine domains of listening and spoken language established by the AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language for Listening and Spoken Language Specialists (LSLS) (in both auditory-verbal therapy and auditory-verbal education). The redesigned onsite and distance learning master degree and credential programs were accredited by the CCTC and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Beginning in 2005, the programs were offered in conjunction with the University of San Diego (USD) School of Leadership and Education Sciences. (Contains 1 table.)